Virtual: From Terminal to Turnaround: How GitLab’s Co-Founder Leveraged ChatGPT in His Cancer Fight

About the Talk:

When GitLab co-founder Sid Sijbrandij was diagnosed with bone cancer, he brought his engineering mindset to the fight.

After almost two years of exploring everything that standard medicine could offer, Sid had reached the end of what doctors could offer him. That’s when he began to channel his career to fight back, by using AI to help him analyze cancer not as a static disease, but a fast-adapting system.

Sid used ChatGPT to help track and understand his cancer and health data. He inputted scans, blood tests, and tissue samples to build a personal research and development loop that let him connect the dots, spot changes, and explore new potential treatments alongside his medical team. The result helped him move faster, ask sharper questions, and coordinate care across a complex landscape.

In this OpenAI Forum talk, Sid and geneticist Jacob Stern share what it means to turn AI into a partner in health research.

About the Speakers:

Sid Sijbrandij, Co-founder and Executive Chair @ GitLab

Sid Sijbrandij (pronounced “see-brandy”) is the Co-founder and Executive Chair of GitLab Inc., the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps platform. GitLab’s single application helps organizations deliver software faster and more efficiently while strengthening their security and compliance. Sid also served as CEO from 2012-2024. He also co-founded Kilo Code in March, the open AI coding platform.

Sid’s career path has been anything but traditional. He spent four years building recreational submarines for U-Boat Worx and while at Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid he worked on the Legis project, which developed several innovative web applications to aid lawmaking. He first saw Ruby code in 2007 and loved it so much that he taught himself how to program. In 2012, as a Ruby programmer, he encountered GitLab and discovered his passion for open source. Soon after, Sid commercialized GitLab, and by 2015 he led the company through Y Combinator’s Winter 2015 batch. Under his leadership, the company has grown with an estimated +30 million registered users from startups to global enterprises.

A pioneer of open-core companies and new models of entrepreneurship, Sid has built numerous companies through Open Core Ventures, where he is a General Partner. As President and Director of the Sijbrandij Foundation, Sid has launched initiatives to improve and reimagine how we approach issues such as cancer treatment, clean energy, city development, and how we engage with both big art and technology. He is also a Board Member of the GitLab Foundation.

Sid studied at the University of Twente in the Netherlands where he received an M.S. in Management Science. Named one of the “top business minds of the pandemic” by Forbes for “spreading the gospel of remote work,” Sid is recognized as an expert in the future of work, AI, and entrepreneurship.

Sid lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Karen. Visit sytse.com to learn more.

Jacob Stern

Jacob Stern leads operations and investments for the personalized medical team surrounding Sid Sijbrandij. Jacob is pioneering a data-driven, N=1 approach to treating Sid’s high-grade osteosarcoma, overseeing a portfolio of experimental therapeutics and novel diagnostic assays.

Jacob previously led the spatial transcriptomics product line at 10x Genomics. Prior to his work in life sciences, he focused on data integration at Palantir Technologies and strategy at BCG. He holds an MBA and BA from Stanford University.